Mindgames with yourself

I never really prepared myself for the mindgames of training and trying to succeed. I didnt go into this willy nilly but at the same time i underestimated the pyschological impact.

And although today I won the mindgame that swallowed me up and spat me out yesterday, I didnt feel like I had improved or gained anything worthwhile technically.

At each turn I tried harder. Even at the depths of my despair in not being able to improve I still gave it a shot. And I guess, in the end, maybe I did improve, if only mentally, because I feel like I am in the right frame of mind to do such.

Today was about minus 18 on top of the mountain. We did some balance drills to start of with, skiing without poles with hands on head (weirdest), hands on hips (my favourite because I was aware of my upper body rotation), hands behind back (hardest) and hands in air (most awkward). Another balance drill we did is called parrallel traversing. This is where you face down the mountain, but with your skis parrallel facing slightly up the mountain (i.e. totally separating the upper and lower body). This took two runs to perfect but apparently will do wonders to my counter-rotation ability.

During this whole time there were slight snow showers. About 11am it started to bucket down with big fat dry flakes. This continued for about forty five minutes. We had some lunch and as we came out the sun to decided to join us. With the clouds gone and about ten centimetres of fresh dry powder I was in heaven. This was my favourite type of snow to ski on. The sun was out and I could see all the undulations, tracks and bumps.

The slalom course was set up and I gave it another shot. I went terribly. The course was already tracked out and the powder had been pushed to the sides. This meant skiing on ice, virtually. I was sliding all over the place, unable to get a proper edge. And because the slalom course is extra fast turning, by the time I did get an edge I was already behind in making my turn for the next gate.

This went on for about three runs. On my last run I decided to do a different approach. Instead of going quite wide of the gates (I was then following my guide) I decided to go no more than five centimetres past each gate. This ended up being a successful tactic until I was going so fast I missed two gates! In a real race I would have been immediately disqualified. But all in all I am happy with my progress with gates overall.

The main thing for me is technique. My guide is gone for a week so I am training with the assistatnt coach Mr David (Graham) Hasselhoff. I am looking forward to this as Graham is alot more techo than my guide Scott, who is more relaxed and cant stop talking about boobies. Not that I mind, but sometimes I need to focus!

So technique technique technique!

Super G course tommorrow and I am borrowing some GS skis (been on slaloms the whole time) so I am really looking forward to that. More speed and a bigger turning radius is something I really need to do to change my mental perspective. Who knows it might give me a new lease on my technique.

Anyway cheers to winning the mental battle and here comes the technical one.

Signing off for today.....